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Re: Would You Take a Free Trip to Paris?

Originally Posted by The German

The Louvre museum was one of the most grotesk sights I ever had in my life.

It cemented my opinion that mankind didn`t know how to appreciate art, when I watched hundreds of people buy expensive tickets and crowd up for hours to make one single picture of a Mona Lisa hidden behind thick glass.

And to then simply leave the museum after having made that pick.........

Yea, we were there not long after the whole Da Vinci Code thing, there was a two hour wait to see the Mona Lisa.

However, we were able to wander through the rest of the museum almost completely uninterrupted. Thing is, the Louvre is very cavernous and there could easily be thousands of people looking through the other wings without creating any obvious crowd.

Whilest some of the most impressive and amazing European artworks of the past 800 years, stolen by Napoleon between 1792 and 1812 from all over the continent and beyond was on display just a few more steps away.

Mankind is doomed.[/QUOTE]

I'm sure mankind is doomed, but I'll enjoy the lack of traffic around all of the cool stuff that I actually want to see in the meantime.

Re: Would You Take a Free Trip to Paris?

Well, neither do I, actually. Fine, I'll amend that to "countries we have extremely tense, protracted diplomatic problems with." Or countries where kidnapped foreigners is a thing.

That makes more sense. Generally speaking we always follow news/ elections for particular countries prior to traveling. The State Department has also a good resource for travel specific information. A while ago we had both traveled to Guatemala, but separately. After our respective trips, we had decided to travel back to the country together. However, the recent elections had put the place into turmoil and it became unsafe to travel there.

Honestly, I find that a countries internal problems are usually a bigger issue for travelers than any international relationship.

Originally Posted by Cardinal

That being said, I'll be the first to admit that not even a fraction of my worst fears are ever validated after actually visiting a foreign country.

This is a good point, people place a lot of hype on the dangers of international travel. Even when I was in the military they talked heavily about force protection. . . in Singapore of all places.

Re: Would You Take a Free Trip to Paris?

When you go to another country you not only fall under their laws nor have citizen's rights, but police, judges and jurors are always friendly towards foreigners. Increasingly this can be particularly true concerning Americans.